Athelstaneford1
Ma guid-faither in e’s lest days wad
gar me airt oot freits i the lift
I the dwynin oors o nicht;
fur cluds the form o crosses
bodin war an upredden;
fur starn soopit lik stour ahint
the daurkest neuk o the muin
spaein seikness an daith;
fur straiks o licht,
oranges an bluidy reids,
forespeikin the smuchterin lines o stairvation
i the oors afore the daw.
Whaniver the win nou tremmles the hoose
an the cluds set antrinwice,
wan agin a fauch-blae lift,
I stacher o a suddent frae sleep
an rax ti open the winnock,
leukin til the easins fur signalt chynges,
scowkin awa ti the mirk o the chaumer
ti bide the sowf o the win,
the freuchie stibble o ma guid-faither’s vyce
onskivent in ma ear.
Athelstaneford1
My grandfather in his last days would
tell me to search the sky for omens in
the waning hours of night;
for clouds the shape of crosses
portending war and dispersion;
for stars swept like white dust behind
the darkest corner of the moon
auguring illness and death;
for streaks of light,
oranges and bloody reds,
divining the smouldering contours of famine
in the hours before dawn.
Whenever the wind now trembles the house
and the clouds are at odd angles,
white against a paling sky,
I stumble suddenly from sleep
and reach to open the window,
watching the horizon for signalled changes,
absenting myself to the dark of the room
to wait for the whistling of the wind to stop,
the dry whisker of my grandfather’s voice
unshaven in my ear.
1 On the eve of a battle between an invading coalition of Picts and Dalriadan Scots and the Northumbrian Angles in 832 CE, the apostle Andrew, who had been crucified on a diagonal cross, appeared to the Pictish king Óengus II in a vision and promised him victory. The following morning the coalition army observed a white cross formed by clouds in the sky. They won the battle and the coalition attributed their victory to the patronage of Andrew, adopting Andrew's cross as their emblem. The Northumbrian king Aethelstan was slain while fording a nearby river during the routing of his army; hence the name of the small village of Athelstaneford, which stands on the site of the ancient battle. These three poems are emblematic of my nationality in much the same way that both the paraphenalia of Scotland’s nationhood and the legend of their origin are emblematic of that nationhood.
